Saturday, February 25, 2017

Is a fixed mindset more realistic than a growth mindset?

Before I got far into Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, I was confronted by the thought that the author might classify me as having a fixed mindset rather than
a growth mindset. Dr Dweck is an eminent psychologist who has conducted a great
deal of research on mindsets. She suggests that if you believe that your
intelligence “is something very basic about you that you can’t change very
much” you have a fixed mindset, but if you believe that you “can always change
how intelligent you are” you have a growth mindset.

In considering those propositions (along with a couple of
other similar ones) my mind turned initially to research showing that for most
people IQ tends to remain fairly stable throughout life. That must mean that
existing IQ is a good predictor of future IQ. If you choose an individual at
random it would be safe to bet that their IQ is not likely to change much.

However, after a few moments I realized that I was adopting
what I call a spectator mindset. I was considering the relevant literature like
a spectator who is not personally involved. I had overlooked the fact that the
author was asking whether I agreed with certain beliefs about the potential for
my intelligence to change.

When I began to think from a personal perspective, books by
Norman Doidge on brain plasticity came to mind. From a personal viewpoint, I
think it makes sense to view your intellectual capacity in much the same light
as your physical fitness. Your brain is like a muscle – use it to make it
strong. Or, at my age, if you don’t use it you lose it!

As I read further into the book I discovered that, like many
other people, I alternate between fixed and growth mindsets.

I was induced to read Mindset,
by an article by Nela Canovic on the Quora site where people were discussing the
most important thing they have learned in life. The article got me wondering
how closely Carol Dweck’s distinction between fixed and growth mindsets
corresponds to the distinction between spectator and player mindsets that enabled
me to greatly improve one aspect of my life about 14 years ago. It makes sense
for a spectator to focus on what she or he expects to happen, but to be successful
at anything you need a player mindset – to focus on your intentions. That is
one of the most important things I had learned from life. (I have recently
written about it on this blog.)

My concern
in this post is with the realism of different mindsets because I don’t think it
serves us well to maintain delusions about ourselves. As I see it, human flourishing depends, to a
large extent, on realism – seeking understanding about important aspects of
your own life and human life in general, and being disposed to act on that
understanding when circumstances permit. As previously discussed on this blog,
that view has been reinforced by my reading of Wellbeing: Happiness in a Worthwhile Life, by Neera Badhwar, a philosopher.

As I see it, fixed and growth mindsets must both be closely related to
the meanings that people give to their experiences, and how those meanings or
interpretations shape their intentions and future behaviour. Is a growth mindset
more realistic than a fixed mindset?

Carol
Dweck suggests that the fixed mindset – the belief that your qualities are
carved in stone – “creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over”. She
adds:

“If you
have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a
certain moral character – well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy
dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most
basic characteristics”.

The book emphasises
is that this mindset gives people one consuming goal – proving themselves: “Every
situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or
character”. In this mindset people tend to avoid coming to terms with reality
if reality doesn’t validate their views of their own qualities.

What about
the people who have a fixed mindset which involves labelling themselves as
stupid, erratic, neurotic, lacking in willpower, or manifesting some other quality
associated with poor performance? The author doesn’t give much attention to the
potential for people to develop fixed mindsets which involve labelling
themselves as poor performers. That could be because she sees fixed mindsets as
stemming largely from attempts by parents and teachers to boost the self-esteem
of children by telling them how clever they are, and so forth.

In her
discussion of willpower, the author’s main emphasis is on the potential for
people who believe they have strong willpower to fall into the trap of firmly resolving to do something, then failing to act
according to their intentions because they make no special efforts to do so. She
doesn’t mention that people who have come to label themselves as lacking in
willpower might give up making resolutions to do things that could improve
their lives. Perhaps that point is too obvious.

When I
went looking in the book for recognition of the potential for people with fixed
mindsets to label themselves as poor performers, I did find some. For example,
there is recognition of this in the author’s discussion of the higher incidence
of depression among students with fixed mindsets, and in her discussion of the
learning potential of inner-city children who have been labelled as retarded or
emotionally disturbed. The author also writes:

“People
tell me they start to catch themselves when they are in the throes of the fixed
mindset – passing up the chance for learning, feeling labelled by a failure, or
getting discouraged when something requires a lot of effort. And then they
switch themselves into the growth mindset …”.

Carol Dweck explains:

“The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic
qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people
may differ in every which way – in their initial talents and aptitudes,
interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application
and experience”.

The author refrains from making unrealistic claims about
what can be achieved with a growth mindset. She suggests that people with a
growth mindset don’t believe that with proper motivation and education anyone
can become an Einstein or a Beethoven. They believe that “a person’s true
potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it is impossible to foresee what
can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training”. As discussed in an earlier post, practice in
being alert to opportunities could also be expected to expand growth potential.

In the growth mindset people accept both failure and success
as providing learning opportunities. The most important questions: What can I
learn from that experience? How can I use it as a basis for growth?

Mindset contains
important messages about ways in which parents, teachers and coaches can
encourage children to adopt a growth mindset. Carol Dweck considers the message
of praising effort rather than outcome to be too simplistic. She now advises teachers and parents “to
praise a child's process and strategies, and tie those to the outcome”. In my
view she is encouraging realistic appraisal of personal performance and
potential for improvement.

My bottom line: Don’t fool yourself that you are being
realistic if you adopt a fixed mindset about your intelligence, personality or
moral character. Everyone is a work in progress. We make progress by learning
from experience.

Postscript:
My attention has been drawn to a study by Yue Li and Timothy Bates that has failed to replicate Carol Dweck's findings regarding praise of intelligence of children and children's beliefs in the malleability of their basic ability. Please see comments below for further information.

Thanks Saroosh Wattoo.The abstract of the paper by Yue Li and Timothy Bates states:"Mindset theory states that children’s ability and school grades depend heavily on whether they believe basic ability is malleable and that praise for intelligence dramatically lowers cognitive performance. Here we test these predictions in 3 studies totalling 624 individually-tested 10-12-year-olds. Praise for intelligence failed to harm cognitive performance and children’s mindsets had no relationship to their IQ or school grades. Finally, believing ability to be malleable was not linked to improvement of grades across the year. We find no support for the idea that fixed beliefs about basic ability are harmful, or that implicit theories of intelligence play any significant role in development of cognitive ability, response to challenge, or educational attainment."

A pre-print of the paper can be read here:https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/tsdwy/

This is an inspiring post. I think philosophically it complete makes sense that the malleable or growth mindset would lead to personal growth and increased potential even if the science as of yet does not bear that out.

Thanks Leah. It is a truism that people who are open to learning from experience will learn more than those who aren't. I hope psychologists move quickly to sort the grain from the chaff in this area. I doubt whether grandparents do any harm by telling children that they are clever when their behaviour shows that they are clever. But it would be good to be sure.

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